News Media
TV Dope Awards Expand
April 26, 2006 
Due to popular demand from GUARDIAN readers, we have been forced to expand the popular “TV Dope Reporter” awards to all categories. Originally it was aimed at keeping the TV reporter-actors from wading in flood waters, but with letters like this one from Jennifer, we have to open it up.
I’d like to nominate Melissa Paul (KIVI 6) for Dope Reporter this week. Did you catch her swinging in a playground mid-report???
In the interest of fair play we have to make a nomination for STEVE LIEBENTHAL, the KBCI-2 anchor who spoke of the Spanish named Mercado Mall as “mer say doe” mall in Caldwell.
So far it seems like channels 6 and 7 are front runners with 2 making a respectable(?) showing in this reverse ratings game. Does anyone watch the kids on 12?
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Comments & Discussion
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Apr 27, 2006, 1:14 pm
Are you kidding?! Who can stand to watch the “kids” on 12? The lack of nominations is probably because no one does. I nominate the whole group as Dope Reporters.
“News at Nine, it’s about time”. Really? Why? The last thing I want to do at nine o’clock is interrupt my prime time viewing pleasure with a poorly executed repeat of the daily news that I watched at 5:00 or 6:00 (which also draws into question their claim of being the first to report the evening news).
And can I just say, “Buy some damn technology!” There is nothing cheesier than watching the weather man or a reporter stand next to a TV displaying their graphics (all red graphics, no less). Watching a TV…on TV! Now that is quality broadcasting!
Apr 27, 2006, 1:21 pm
“Kids on 12.” Good way of putting it, Guardian. I’ll occasionally tune in when flippin’ thru the channels, but the REAL news (from the stations that CARE!) is on at 10pm – everybody knows that. It looks like it’s really hard to stretch out a half-hour of material into a one-hour newscast.
It can be interesting to watch the local news on the weekends, when the amateurs are running the show. (Unlike those polished professionals of the weekdays – hahahahahaha! Sometimes I crack myself up!) I take some kind of weird, sadistic delight when the wrong film-clip is loaded in the machine, or better yet, when there’s no clip, and we get to watch the reporterette’s eyes go deer-in-the-headlights for 10 or 15 seconds.
Saturday mornings, Robbie Johnson and that 4th-string weather-babe are the only game in town. Don’t plan on watching for more than 15 minutes, though… the same material is repeated over and over and over, every 15 minutes all morning, except when Chef Lou does his cooking segment.
Regarding your awards… for me personally, it’ll always be King Larry Gebert, and whoever comes in 2nd place.
Apr 27, 2006, 2:57 pm
Let’s see, today on the early Ch7 edition with Maggie, she was reading a story and all I heard was “it bit him on the bum”….ON THE BUM? What, are you his MOTHER? But, I also am a huge fan of the gaffs and goofs. There was the time that a female reporter last name Hicks (can’t remember first name, maybe Shannon)was furious at her live crew and when the camera, unexpectedly, went live on her she was shouting and gesturing like a Banshee; then there was the “girl” I can’t recall her name, who got the giggles at the Gold Bond Jock Itch advertisment (which sponsored some portion of the 10pm weather) and she never recovered; then there was Marla Ming, who…well, she had a short stint as weather “girl”, with her only obvious prior experience being the Clinique Counter at the department store. But, I am old enough to remember Mary Holtman….uhmmm the worst ever. He just grated me the wrong way everytime I heard his voice. Now he helps “sell” cruise tickets. If you shell out the bucks you can end up on a slow boat to wherever listening to him the whole way and NO WAY TO ESCAPE….a fate worse than death. Each time we get someone I really enjoy listening to, who is polished and articulate, they leave to go to work for the City of Boise or ACHD or the School District. Can it be that much more interesting to be a spin doctor than to be a reporter?
Apr 27, 2006, 4:56 pm
Oh, criminy! Tam’s throwing fuel on the fire!
I vividly remember Marla Ming. (Bon cosmetics counter? I bet you’re right! She musta gone back.) She didn’t know much about weather, but she did an EXCELLENT job of waving her hand, Miss America -style, in front of the big weather map.
I hope Tam’s not referring to Dan Hollar when she speaks of the “polished and articulate” reporters who have moved on. He’s at the school district now (where it’s reported he earns $94k/year – sweeeet!). His biggest claim to fame is hunkerin’ down “in an undisclosed location” all during the recent bond-election campaign.
I feel about Paul Fredericks the way Tam feels about Marty Holtman. “What a great state,” indeed! First of all, those little “what a great state” feature stories are a 100% ripoff of the same sort of thing that was being done by some guy on KTVB. (John something-or-other; I believe he relocated to Seattle.) And he even tried to copy the other guy’s “down-home, semi-feeble” Radar O’Reilly voice mannerisms. When Fredericks recently started doing the morning news, I was very disappointed when every story he read didn’t end with “What a great state.”
Apr 27, 2006, 6:31 pm
Those tortured souls out there love it, Guardian!! I need to work on my satire,but here goes. With our local media is one dope dopier than the other dope?? But I have got to give it ,hands down to Ch. 12, Fox ( an oxymoron ??!!) news network. Listening to them inform you of the day’s happenings is enough to make you either cry out in sheer anguish or throw your TV out the window in a mad rage!!!
I heard there’s a new cure for bulemia, alcoholism, meth,etc. They tie you to a chair in a small closet for 24 hrs. with nothing but ch. 12 news re-runs with the idiot commercials. At the end your either cured or your a ravin’ maniac the rest of your life!!!
Apr 28, 2006, 12:03 am
I’d love to come observe you all at your job and post my rants and raves on a blog.
Sheesh. If you don’t like it, don’t watch.
EDITOR NOTE–They didn’t say it wasn’t entertaining.
Apr 28, 2006, 8:33 am
I just wanted Steve to know I wasn’t talking about Dan Hollar or Molly McCarty. I was specifically thinking of Elizabeth Duncan. I assumed she left for a bigger and better market, but alas she is spinning for the Boise Public Works Dept. I don’t get it. Elizabeth, honey, we need you back.
Apr 28, 2006, 3:25 pm
I love Boise TV news fashions. What color tie/shirt combo will Rick Lance wear today? The girls on 12 amaze me with their weekly doos. Aileen Simborio is slowly turning blonde as the streaks get bigger. Carolyn Holley could make a cat caught in a tree seem like 9/11 with those looks of complete shock. Boise TeeVee news is basically a clown show.
Apr 28, 2006, 5:11 pm
You all need to watch the TV news that actually is broadcast from the little villages/hamlets of America the next time you are traveling.
Apr 29, 2006, 10:57 pm
Tam – it was probably Michelle Hicks. She took her act to the Human Resources Dept. at Micron a few years ago.
Marla Ming did indeed move from the cosmetics counter to the weather wall…and if you know anyone who worked in TV in those days and might’ve been included in their “party circle”…ask if anyone knows a great story about Marla creating a whole new use for kitchen sinks.
Lets see, what else…why does Rick Lance call himself Idaho’s Chief Meteorologist? He is not really a meteorologist…is chief of nothing…and channel 7 doesn’t cover all of Idaho…only a small part of the SW corner!
Should channel 12 call it’s news cast Faux News? by the way. for some laughs, check out the web site for “fauxnewschannel” … or google faux news…it’s pretty funny.
Gotta go watch Saturday Night Live…
May 1, 2006, 9:42 pm
Brooke Hale. SAT. 4/29/’06 (the channel 2 Anchor whose voice resembles a crow). Her lead off story was about 3’rd grade kids who can’t read. Next item about a body found in Palace-ville. In the middle of the 3’rd news item she corrected her mispronunciation of Placerville by explaining that she is not from this area. In the following news item she described an event that happened in “Lewisville, Kentucky”.